


my soul / tie it to yours

by andabatae



Series: One-Shots and Drabbles [23]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21662299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andabatae/pseuds/andabatae
Summary: She’s radiant across the fire, even with tears in her eyes. Kylo feels like he’s seeing something special, like her armor has been stripped away to reveal the fragile flesh beneath.He’s sick with wanting her, even though he knows it’s futile. She hates him, and she isn’t his soulmate, anyway. He doesn’t have a soulmate, doesn’t deserve one.Soulmate bonds form at the exact right time for two people to fall in love, and if there was ever a right time for someone to love Kylo Ren, it was long ago, when he was a different person.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: One-Shots and Drabbles [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1387747
Comments: 52
Kudos: 474
Collections: The Pink Ladies Love Exchange





	my soul / tie it to yours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shestoolazytologin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shestoolazytologin/gifts).



She’s radiant across the fire, even with tears in her eyes. Especially with tears in her eyes. Kylo feels like he’s seeing something special, like her armor has been stripped away to reveal the fragile flesh beneath.

He’s sick with wanting her, even though he knows it’s futile. She hates him, and she isn’t his soulmate, anyway. He doesn’t have a soulmate, doesn’t deserve one. Soulmate bonds form at the exact right time for two people to fall in love, and if there was ever a right time for someone to love Kylo Ren, it was long ago, when he was a different person.

“You’re not alone,” he tells Rey, because he can’t stand the loneliness he feels seeping out of her Force signature. He’s felt that cold, clawing despair too many times over the course of his miserable life, and he knows how it diminishes a person. The slow drip of loneliness has carved out caverns inside him, dark tunnels where no light can penetrate.

Something in her eyes shifts—maybe it’s just the flicker of firelight.

“Neither are you,” she says, sticking out her bare hand.

He can’t believe it. She’s looking at him like she wants him to touch her. He’s brushed against her in battle, but she’s never _invited_ him to touch her. It’s suddenly the only thing he wants in the entire universe.

He slowly draws off his glove, the scrape of leather over skin sounding loud to his ears. He feels exposed, almost naked, with that layer removed. His gloves ensure he never has to touch the world, never has to feel its welcoming heat or suffer the promise of things too good for a man like him.

His fingertips tremble as he reaches out to her over the fire. Skin to skin; they’re going to be connected more intimately than Kylo has been connected to anyone in years.

It’s a slow surrender, the way their fingertips meet. He feels the pressure and warmth of her skin even across the vast distance between them.

And then—

***

Ben Solo is six years old when he first hears about soulmates. The information is shouted during one of Han and Leia’s fights, which he’ll find ironic later, once he’s old enough to tally up the damage his parents wrought on him.

“Why can’t you just go to the gala with me?” Leia demands. “I want you to meet the ambassador from Chandrila. There’s a position he can get for you in his cabinet—”

“I don’t want a position in the cabinet,” Han says. “I don’t want to be involved in politics at all.”

“What, you’re going to keep smuggling for the rest of your life? Leaving Ben and me for weeks at a time, earning your credits illegally even though you know I have enough for all of us—”

“I’m not a charity case,” Han interrupts. “And yeah, I’ll keep smuggling. It’s what I know best.”

Leia slaps her hands down on the table and leans in, and Ben cowers deeper beneath the table he’s hidden under. They don’t know he’s there, but that’s not unusual. His mother looks ferocious, even in her blue velvet gown and elaborately-dressed braids, and it awes him as much as it frightens him. “Why don’t you learn something new?” Leia demands. “You could make a difference. The war may be over, but there’s still so much to do.”

“You said it yourself, princess.” Han smirks the way he always does when he calls her ‘princess.’ “The war is over. So are my obligations.”

Leia scoffs. “As selfish as ever, I see.” She shoves up the wrist of her gown, revealing the mark there. It’s tiny, just a reddened circle with a half-moon shape behind it, but Ben knows it must be important, because Han has one on his wrist, too. “What about this?” she asks. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

“Oh, please.” Han paces away, shoving a hand through his hair. “It’s not teamwork if I only ever do what _you_ want.”

“It isn’t what I want,” Leia says, pursuing him across the room. “It’s about what’s good for the galaxy.”

“I never asked to be responsible for the kriffing galaxy,” Han shouts, temper snapping at last. He turns on her, and Ben clutches the table leg in fright. He’s never seen this side of his father before, the fury twisting Han’s normally smiling face. Ben’s parents argue a lot, but it usually ends in laughter and apologies. “I never asked for a soulmate, either.”

A horrible silence falls over the room. Ben barely stifles his whimper. Even if he doesn’t understand what the words mean, he understands intuitively that a line has been crossed. Whatever’s just been said can never be taken back.

“At this rate,” Leia says, tone turning to ice in the face of Han’s fire, “you’re not going to have one for long.”

***

A spark travels up Kylo’s arm from Rey's hand, electrifying his entire body. There’s a sharp pinch in his left wrist, and then images flash through his mind like one of the flipbooks he loved as a child.

_Rey sliding her palms up his chest to cup his neck, then pulling his head down to hers._

_Rey naked beneath him, gasping his name._

_Rey draped in black, seated beside him on her own obsidian throne._

_Rey leaving the Resistance behind to be with him. Kylo leaving the First Order behind to be with her._

_Kylo draped in white, holding their child._

Black and white, fighting and kissing, a tumult of images spinning past too fast to track more than their outlines. But in each one of them is Rey, Rey, Rey, perfect and fiery, kissing him, holding him, _loving_ him…

That last thought it painful enough to jerk Kylo out of the reverie. How can she love him, how can anyone love him—

He only has time to see the same shock in her eyes before there’s a blast of sound and motion as Luke Skywalker blows down the hovel she’s nestled in. Kylo sees his uncle for a split second—the Force bond is stronger now that they’ve touched—and then the vision is severed so abruptly he feels sick.

He gasps for breath, heart pounding as he tries to figure out what just happened. His wrist _burns_. Feeling a sense of growing dread, he pushes his sleeve up…

A reddened patch rises from his pale skin, the mark an X like two lightsabers crossing.

***

Ben Solo is sixteen years old when he first realizes he may never have a soulmate.

Some of the other children at Luke’s Jedi Temple already have their marks. All they need to do is follow their instincts to find their other halves somewhere in the galaxy, and for several of them, their soulmates are already at the temple. It’s easy and simple, how those couples fall into the rhythms of first love. Forever love.

Nothing is easy or simple for Ben. Not meditation, not controlling his temper, not making friends. He’s too tall, too awkward, too _much_. He has ears like radar dishes and a nose that looks plopped onto his face by a sub-par sculptor, and his newly-adult voice is low and booming.

And his nightmares…

They’ve gotten worse over the years, and more than once, he’s destroyed something in his chambers while asleep. Voices whisper at all hours of the day. _You’re powerful and no one understands you. No one loves you, and no one ever will… but one day, you will rule over everyone who ever doubted you. Embrace your destiny_.

The voices are right. No one _does_ love him. His parents left him with Luke, didn’t they? And Luke is distracted with his teaching and prone to getting frustrated with Ben’s emotional outbursts. There’s no soulmate mark on Ben’s wrist, and the fear that one will never appear worms into his gut and takes up residence there like a parasite.

Still, a tiny part of him hopes, despite everything. Maybe she’s out there, feeling just as unloved as he does. Maybe she needs him, too.

Maybe Ben doesn’t have to be alone.

***

Kylo Ren fights back-to-back with Rey, his normal battlelust sharpened by an almost unbearable need to keep her safe. He feels feral as he chops and stabs his way through Snoke’s Praetorian Guard, leveraging all of his considerable strength to cut through their lightsaber-resistant laminate armor.

Panic bubbles up in his throat as other guards target Rey. No. They can’t have her; not now, not when he’s finally found her. Despite the odds, Kylo Ren has a soulmate, although it would be typical of his nightmarish life for her to be taken from him before he ever got the chance to love her.

He loves her already, of course, in his own pathetic way, but he knows he could love her better if she would let him. And maybe… maybe their soulmate bond means she’ll have to love him, too.

Finally, the guards lie dead, and Kylo extends his hand to Rey once again. “Please,” he begs her, tears welling in his eyes. _Please join me. Please rule by my side. Please give my life meaning. Please, please, please fill this gaping hole in my chest where my loneliness has carved away my humanity_.

She doesn’t join him.

***

Ben Solo is twenty-four years old when he knows for sure he will never have a soulmate.

He’s standing in the middle of the wreckage of the Jedi temple, surrounded by flames and corpses. He didn’t do all of this damage—the Knights of Ren did most of it, dispatched by Snoke to take him away from Luke Skywalker once and for all—but he did some of it.

Two bodies lie before him, linked at the hand, their heads tilted towards each other even in death. Those two discovered their soulmate bond when they were only fifteen, and they loved each other with deep and steady devotion in the years after that.

Now they’re dead.

Ben takes a deep breath and rubs his stinging eyes. They only sting worse, the soot mixing with his tears, but that’s fine. Good, in fact. He _should_ hurt.

He’s the reason all of this happened. He’s the reason these two soulmates lie dead, their bond severed by the swing of a durasteel blade. He also severed his own chance of happiness by turning against Luke and welcoming the dark; he knows it with a deep and terrible certainty. No one can love a monster.

Snoke approaches and lays a large, spindly hand on Ben’s shoulder. “It’s hard to kill the past,” the old alien rasps, “but this is a good start.” He turns away. “Come. Your training begins.”

So Ben bids farewell to his youth, his past, and any hope at finding love. He turns to follow Snoke, embracing the dark path that awaits him.

It was always going to end up like this.

***

Kylo sees Rey in his dreams. She haunts him like a white-robed specter, shouting accusations. Sometimes she kisses him in those dreams. More often, she kills him. It’s a relief, if he’s being honest—at least then his suffering would be over and she would be free to seek out someone she can truly love, someone who won’t mind that she had to put down her soulmate like a rabid animal.

Whenever he wakes from those dreams, he feels the bitterest disappointment.

It’s been a year since he last saw or heard from her. The Force bond is silent, and she’s in hiding with the Resistance. He’s assumed the mantle of Supreme Leader with more ease than he’d expected, and the First Order runs like a well-ordered machine. All in all, he ought to be pleased with how his life has ended up. No more mentors, no more family, no more voices telling him he isn’t good enough. He’s _proven_ he’s good enough.

He can’t quite believe it, though, and the raised mark on his wrist agrees with him. It throbs painfully from morning to night, the flesh angry red as if furious at him for failing to follow Rey. This is the compulsion soulmates talk about—the need to come together growing increasingly agonizing until both parties are compelled to search the universe for their chosen one. The pain has grown so bad that some days, he doesn't think he will survive it.

 _Beloved_ , he thinks, tracing the red X with a fingertip. It’s warm to the touch. _If I could sever this connection myself and set you free, I would._

It's a lie, though. Kylo could set her free right now by ending his life, but for some reason, he can’t.

Time passes in its usual brutal manner, and Kylo sleeps less and less. He grows to hate those dream visions of Rey, even the ones where she’s killing him, because they’ll never come true. So he meditates through the night or works himself into the sort of deep exhaustion that prohibits dreams.

She still haunts him, though, her presence echoed in every step, in the throb of his soulmate mark, in his heart’s ache.

***

Kylo Ren is thirty years old when he finally sees his soulmate again.

It happens all at once and for no reason he can understand. He’s in his quarters, cleaning his lightsaber for the millionth time to avoid succumbing to sleep, when the sound is sucked out of the room. The weight of anticipation makes his skin prickle under his long-sleeved black tunic.

She’s standing there before him, dressed in simple white clothes. She looks like an angel, her skin glowing in the sunlight of whatever planet she’s on.

“Rey,” Kylo breathes, hardly able to believe he’s seeing her at last.

Her brow furrows, and her mouth turns down. “You haven’t tried to find me,” she says.

He shakes his head. “There’s no need. The Resistance isn’t a threat anymore.”

She takes a step closer. “No, I mean you haven’t tried to find _me_.” She undoes her leather wristband, unravels the length of linen covering her forearm, and shows him her mark. A reddened X, just like his.

He stares at it greedily, mesmerized by this proof of their inexplicable connection. “I haven’t,” he says, since she seems to be awaiting an answer. “I thought you’d prefer it that way.”

She makes a wounded sound. “It hurts,” she says, her voice rising as she gets a step closer to him. “Every day a little worse. The pain keeps me up at night.”

A lump fills Kylo’s throat. “I’m sorry. If I could break this connection, I would.”

Pain flashes across Rey’s face. “You would? Just like that? End our bond and erase the marks and let me live out the rest of my life knowing that not even my soulmate wanted to stay with me?”

Now Kylo’s the one to groan. “You rejected me, Rey. _You_ left _me_.”

Fire snaps in her eyes. “No, I rejected ruling the galaxy with you. I left the Supreme Leader of the First Order, not you.”

“That makes no sense.” He sets the lightsaber down and paces towards her, unable to resist the near-magnetic pull. He needs to be closer to her. “I am the Supreme Leader.”

Her chin juts out as she stands firm against his approach. “No, you’re Ben Solo," she says stubbornly, "and you’re my soulmate. I've had a whole painful year to think about this, and I’m tired of you avoiding me.”

The words knock him off balance. He staggers, pressing a hand over his aching heart. “Then… what do you want, Rey?” Surely it isn't to join him, to stand at his side as he's so often dreamed. He knows better than to harbor such foolish hopes.

Her face blazes with conviction. “I want my soulmate here with me. I want this awful, drawn-out agony to end.”

Being with Rey is impossible for a man like Kylo, even if he was somehow able to leave the First Order behind. “You deserve a better man than me.”

Rey shrugs. “Then be a better man.”

He scoffs, trying to ignore the way that ache in his chest spreads, how his eyes burn with the need to cry. “It isn’t that simple.”

“It could be.”

Kylo feels like he’s disintegrating, but she just looks more and more determined with every passing second. She steps within arms’ reach. “Come to me,” she says, softer this time. “There’s no reason for both of us to keep hurting.”

He tries one more time to keep her out, to protect her from the rotten darkness at his core. “I never asked for a soulmate,” he snaps, channeling that long-ago argument he overheard between his mother and father. Surely that will be enough to send her away for good.

But rather than crying or striking him, Rey just looks at him calmly. “Well, too bad,” she says. “Because you’ve got one.”

She reaches forward to cup his neck, then stands on her toes and kisses him.

Kylo Ren’s hope is a fragile thing, nearly dead from neglect. But as Rey’s mouth moves over his, sunlight cascades through him, illuminating the dark hollows inside. His hope unfurls like a fern, delicate tendrils straining towards the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Roses are red  
> Mountains are high  
> I wrote another fic  
> ...But who am I?
> 
> And yes, I love you just as much as Brownie's author loves her. Unless I am Brownie's author? That would be CRAZY!
> 
> (if this doesn't make sense to you, that's because this was part of an anonymous exchange!)


End file.
